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I counted days, I counted miles
To see you there, to see you there
It’s been a long time coming but
It’s you and me, that’s my whole world
The whole school is rolling fake dice
You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes
Voted most likely to run away with you
And I don’t want you to (go)
I just think you should know
And I’ll never let you (go)
Cause I know this is a (fight)
That someday we’re gonna (win)
- Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince by Taylor Swift
Death is a strange thing, and it does stranger things to people. Everyone has their coping mechanisms - or lack of. Everyone wishes there was one moment they could go back to, one moment to extend, let it play out around you. Hold onto someone just one more time. A touch of fingers, a stray memory plucked like a hair from your sleeve. And you are back in a moment you can’t revisit, and life carries on, and you think about the dead, the gone, who don’t know you any more.
But in Sherlock Holmes’ case, the dead was him. And in his case, his coping strategy was different from anyone else’s. Of course it was. He was Sherlock Holmes, he was a consulting detective, and he had brought noble men to tears over the Cluedo board.
Since That Time - you think of it as that; the time when he went away and came back thinner, stronger, with eyes that had a past to be haunted by and a softness you had only seen, before, in rare moments - he’s been…You can’t think of a word. Well, you can, but you know Sherlock wouldn’t like any of the options that immediately spring to mind.
Like clingy. Or needy. In continual need of attention or company. He did his best to hide it, but it was obvious. He rarely wanted to be alone anymore. If he couldn’t be with John - or John and Mary, these days - he’d be plaguing Greg, doing experiments in the lab with Molly, or, if the situation was dire, visiting Mycroft at his workplace.
Or, of course, hanging out with you and Mrs Hudson doing sudoku. Like…right now.
It’s a sunny day, sunlight creeping palely through Mrs Hudson’s netted windows. Warm gingerbread cake lifts through the air, a sharp sugary scent you can almost taste. “Just cooling,” Mrs Hudson had said, and you were looking forward to the moment she deemed it ready.
You’re sitting on the centre of the sofa, next to her; she’s got her reading glasses on, a pen in her hand and a half-folded newspaper over her knee. Your leg is pulled up underneath you, brow furrowed. It was a brow-furrowed, nose-pinched, lips-pressed-together kind of sudoku. Like all your facial muscles needed to be pulled tight, as if by a drawstring, in order to get your braincells to work properly. Solve this mystery, your nostrils supplicated. Find the right combination of numbers, your eyebrows begged. And your stomach was quietly rumbling, on the verge of a thunderous growl that will utterly drown out Mrs Hudson’s unconscious little murmurs.
And then you see a movement from the doorway and look up in time to see Sherlock Holmes himself slinking into the room. It should be impossible for a tall, solid man, in a swishy coat and a blue scarf, to glide without a shadow into a room full of muted daylight. Somehow, he manages it, and glances up just in time to see you watching him.
His lips quirk up briefly. He’s wearing gloves, so he’s been out or going out. Been out, because you haven’t seen him since this morning, and if he’d been in you’d have heard him going up the stairs. His cheeks are slightly tinged from the icy air, so he’s walked. He doesn’t have a case, otherwise he’d be bursting in to tell you how he’s going to solve it - or how he’s already solved it.
You hear all these deductions in Sherlock’s own voice, and smile, half at yourself and half in greeting.
“Oh, Sherlock,” Mrs Hudson says, without looking up. “How did you know I made the gingerbread cake? You weren’t supposed to find out about it until your suppertime.”
(You have to suppress a smile at the relationship between the tenant and his landlady, which occasionally resembles that of an 1850s ‘master of the house’ and his chiding, indulgent nurse.)
“Simple deduction, Mrs Hudson. Easy enough. You brought ginger yesterday.” Sherlock pulls off his scarf and tucks it into his pocket, along with his gloves.
“You were poking through my cupboards again, weren’t you? I told you, mister. None of that.” She wags the pen at him.
“Confiscating your herbal soothers,” he throws back smoothly. “Those things wouldn’t hold up their head in a court. Or a laboratory, for that matter. Molly worries about the quantity that you take.”
Mrs Hudson splutters for a moment and Sherlock gives you another, unprompted, smile, as though you share a joke, a secret one. Maybe you do, but you’re not in on it yet. You’ve never been in on the secrets with Sherlock, even if he acts like you are. Sometimes he looks at you as though he can’t understand why you’re taking too long to process information he’s just told you; as if you should know about it by now. Then again, if he isn’t aware that you’re not a genius, he’s not a genius himself.
John said, once, that Sherlock had ‘mind palace’ versions of yourselves in there. That he’d talk to them. And you have occasionally wondered how many conversations he’s held with people who aren’t there. Wouldn’t it be like trying to hold ghosts in your hands? Breathing on them, life and warmth, only to watch them dissipate?
You don’t have time to think about it, because Sherlock sits down suddenly, on your other side, his leg against yours and the sharp wool of his sleeve, cold from the November air, rustling against the thin barrier of your cotton sleeve. He leans in, over your shoulder, and points a single finger accusingly at Mrs Hudson’s suduko.
“Done that one wrong.”
You both look at him. He rolls his eyes. “It’s obvious. Everything you did before that point is correct, yes, but everything you’ve filled in after that - horribly erroneous.”
Mrs Hudson recovers first. “Well. What is it, then?”
“Eight.”
She crosses out the number, and all the subsequent ones, sucking her teeth lightly as she thinks.
You roll your head back to the left, and tilt your chin up to Sherlock. His eyes flicker up from Mrs Hudson’s hand to your face in acknowledgement.
“Were you doing anything exciting outside?”
“Yes. Christmas shopping.”
You snort obligingly. “Oh, yeah?”
“Got a bauble, actually. For your appalling tree. Nobody sane should celebrate Christmas and encourage the monetization of a-”
“It’s Christmas,” you protest. “It’s a chance to be…I don’t know. Happy.”
“Not according to the opinions of the abominable Christmas songs caterwauling about heartbreak to the sound of bells.”
“You really don’t like George Michael, do you?”
It’s his turn to snort. Reluctantly. “I was at John’s. He has some things of mine - used to be at Scotland Yard. Apparently Lestrade dropped them off to him last year. There was a video - I recorded it for his birthday a few years ago. I couldn’t go. I didn’t want to go,” he amends. “The people were boring and the drinks were boring and they would have been searching for women to take home and shag. However, Lestrade had the uncut version. John had watched it. Felt obliged to tell me about it and then…” His eyes flit from side to side. Confused, you hear, in his voice. “He felt the need to hug me.”
Then he sees your expression. “Stop laughing.”
“Only you could act like a hug was worse than being punched in the face.”
“Headbutted, actually. Mrs Hudson, have you worked it out by now? Surely you’ve got somewhere.”
“Patience,” she tuts. It’s an uncanny resemblance to Sherlock himself, on occasions when Lestrade would pester him for answers he couldn’t yet provide. Sherlock knows it. There’s amusement in his eyes, as he stays placidly on the sofa, as though an impromptu group suduko was the only way he wanted to spend his working Wednesday afternoon.
You sit there, her frail warmth on one side - pen scratching, quiet murmurs, a number enunciated here and there - and Sherlock’s somewhat colder, larger presence on your right - the sound of breathing, heartbeats, a miracle - and wonder.
****
There was a secret, but you hadn’t known it then. A dance, but you hadn’t learnt the steps even though Sherlock, you realised later, had always been rehearsing it. But you’re in on the secret, gliding through the dance, and - somewhat ironically - playing the game, now.
Flatmates becomes partners; partners becomes personal partners. You text Sherlock when he’s halfway home from the wedding, when you’re standing in the hallway with the bass beat of Stayin’ Alive pounding under your sternum and you’ve just realised he’s bolted. Whether it’s the sheer force of the exclamation marks, or because all Sherlock ever wanted was for someone to tell him not to and care - don’t fall, don’t leave, please be alive, please stay - it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he comes back, like always. Mary and John graciously pretend they didn’t notice his absence, and you take his cold hand in yours and dance, and the secret in its nutshell cracks open a bit that night. The first glimpse of the kernel makes you determined and, like a squirrel with commitment issues, you prise it open with both hands.
I always know when the game is on, Mycroft had told you he’d said. You know why? Because I love it. But Sherlock Holmes loves every kind of game. He refuses to play chess (“Mycroft’s game. Uncle Rudy taught him - both of us. God, I hated it.”) but he’ll play almost anything else with you. You’re half-tempted to get him an Xbox for his birthday.
In the cold evenings, January and February, following from his near-permanent-exile, he’ll set up the Scrabble board. Cluedo, on weekend nights when neither of you need to get up early (there will, you have learnt from experience, be food-fights, possible pillow-fights, and regrettable insults about hair products slung across the board, ending with mornings stiff and groaning and feeling hungover, finding crisps crumbled inside leather gloves and your slippers).
The board will start off on the coffee table, neatly set up, but it’ll never stay there. Wrapped in a blanket, you’ll sit on the floor, your back against the bottom of John’s chair. Sherlock will move the board to the floor between you and sit cross-legged, the firelight glinting in his blue eyes, steepled fingers held contemplatively to his mouth, your mugs leaving rings on the table, the world narrowing down to that tiny square in front of the fire - hemmed in by the chairs, protected by the drawn curtains, the rumble of evening traffic a reminder of a life outside that could be let in the moment you wanted it to be.
Then there’s Monopoly, on bank holiday Mondays - to keep the markets going while Mycroft takes his five minutes of leisure time and indulges in a biscuit. Sometimes he’ll sweep everything off the table in front of the sofa and lay out cards. He’s the best at Pairs, obviously. You’re surprisingly good at Snap. One bright, blustery March afternoon when a sleeping Rosie Watson lies peaceably in her cradle, he purloins wool from Mrs Hudson and teaches you cats’ cradle. You knew the basic ones. The ones he teaches you, however, are lethally complicated.
“I’m pretty sure you could weaponise this,” you say, carefully shifting your fingers away from his. If Rosie wakes up suddenly, you’re both fucked, because you’re sitting on the sofa, knees bumping, tied together by your hands.
“The next one is called the Holmes Handcuff. Mycroft and I perfected it, but it was my mother who invented the first part. My father was a willing test subject.”
“I love your parents.”
His eyes flicker up to your face, then back down again. “Yes. Well. You take them to their dreadfully tedious matinees, so love them all you want. It’s very convenient.”
“You know you love them too.”
“Love is…” Sherlock trails off, examining your little finger. “No. Under the weave. Or you’ll end up with a broken finger and John does not want Rosie, unnecessarily, in a hospital setting until she is three years old and can go into the office with him.”
You do as he says.
“Mary thinks eighteen months should be good enough. Then again, she’s the secretary. Rosie will hardly see anything too scarring. And she’ll have been at plenty of crime scenes before then.”
“Will she?”
“Oh, yeah,” Sherlock says casually. “Put your palm against mine, and hold still.”
If there isn’t a physical game handy, he’ll resort to the timeless classics. You wonder how many cab-rides are filled with thumb wars; pulling off his glove and proffering his hand to you, across the middle seat, solemnly like he’s asking you to dance. On some memorable occasions, there have been arm wrestles. By dint of logic, Sherlock should have won. He was physically stronger, after all. But he didn’t. Not always.
“What are you doing?” Mary asked once, craning her head around from the passenger seat. It’s the back of John and Mary’s car, and you’re crammed into the middle seat beside Sherlock, since Rosie is on your left. You both freeze like guilty kids, Sherlock’s thumb still in the act of grappling over yours.
“I don’t want to know,” John had said decisively.
Mary snorted. “I’ll take a picture. Hold still. Hold still - right - there. Gotcha.” She poked her tongue out at Sherlock.
“For God’s sake,” John had said at the traffic lights, when Mary thrust the phone into his face. “Seriously, Sherlock?”
“What? Why are you saying my name? Why not Y/N’s?” Sherlock asked indignantly.
John rolled his eyes in the rearview mirror. It was a good answer.
“You’re the suspicious one, that’s why,” Mary chimed in helpfully. “The dodgy crook. Hey, you putting this on the blog, John?”
Sherlock had scowled and dropped your hand entirely. “The only reason John is not heaping accusations and tiresome questions upon me is because he wishes to ask me to mind your vegetive offspring tomorrow night so you can have a ‘date night’. Read, copious amounts of coitus, since John has been missing that. He is going to ensure you are taking a contraceptive beforehand, however, because he has no wish for another of these - these-” He wrinkled his nose at Rosie, who gurgled back at him happily.
“Vegimals?” you supplied usefully. “You know. From Octonaughts?” (You had introduced Rosie early on to the glory of Octonaughts, Peppa Pig, and Thomas the Tank Engine. Much to Sherlock’s despair, who declared the shows ‘childish’ and ‘cartoonish’. What he was missing was, that was the point.) Also, Rosie looked a bit like a chirpy, happy-go-lucky Vegimal. A Vegimal with blonde bunches.
“I know,” Mary said. “It was my idea. And I’m still insulting you, despite the fact you just called my daughter a vegetable - you big Belstaffed git - because I know you’ll do it anyway.”
“Why?” Sherlock asked. His chin was burying itself in its coat collar. The height of grumpiness.
Instead of answering, Mary just gave you a dimpled smile.
****
The thing that really gets Sherlock is the Murduko. Why. Why do you do it?
“What do you mean?” you ask, flung out across the sofa like a content cat. You hang your head backwards from the armrest and look up at him, standing in the doorway with a James-Bond-worthy glower. The deerstalker is in his hand, for whatever reason.
“Why do you do that…” He flaps the hat at you impatiently. “Ridiculous farce?”
You look at him, mock-offended. “How very dare you?”
He rolls his eyes.
“For God’s sake, if you want to solve a case, you can just come along with me.”
You flip your head back upright to hide your smile. There’s rustles, as Sherlock sheds his coat and scarf. “Maybe I want to solve them from the comfort of our flat.”
Huff. “I also do that.”
“It’s just a game, Sherlock.” You click the pen on and off a few times and then sit up properly, looking over at him. “I don’t get why you hate it so much.”
“It is a pointless amalgamation designed to turn murders into numbers in a trite and brainwashing fashion. No self-respecting murderer would ever-”
You stand, letting the blanket fall to the floor. Sherlock puts his phone on the arm of his chair and turns.
“For goodness’ sake, you big idiot, if you wanted a hug you only have to ask.”
You wrap him up in a hug, nuzzling against him until he relents and returns the embrace. The thought has occurred to you that perhaps he’s jealous of your solitary game. But this seems to be something personal.
****
“Murduko, again?”
“I am not jealous of the Murduko. Stop it. You’re being tiresome.”
“Go and help Mrs Hudson with her suduko, for God’s sake.”
“What are you - You are not reading Far From The Madding Crowd. You’re hiding your Murduko.”
“Stop doing your Murduko and listen to me. There is a serial guillotiner with a flare for theatrics down in Clapham-”
“Lestrade wants us to go for drinks with him and Molly this evening. So you won’t be able to do your Murduko. My condolences.”
“Your Murduko? Oh, I needed it for an experiment.”
“You…got another Murduko. Why? I left a book of murder crosswords for you. Did you see it? What do you mean you gave it to Mary? It was a gift.”
“Why are you awake at two am. Don’t bother answer that, it’s glaringly obvious. Couldn’t sleep, thought you’d do your Murduko. Come back to bed. You were a useful hot water bottle.”
****
Sherlock’s away for the weekend. He leaves on a thundery Friday afternoon; comes back early on Monday morning, smelling of a crisp business-day. But you’re taking the day off and for you, it’s like an extended Sunday. Hence the pyjamas, and the drained cup of hot chocolate, and the books littered casually on the floor by the sofa.
And the Murduko.
“Hey,” you say, smiling up at him. He looks good. He always looks better after you haven’t seen him for a while - a glaring goodness, like you’ll need sunglasses to adjust. He does a curt half-nod, but his eyes are softening, crinkling around the edges as he throws his overnight bag down by the door - and then he spots the Murduko balanced on your knees and his eyes turn practically ferocious.
For him, it’s like the Murduko is the ‘other man’. You’d be lying if you hadn’t said you found this endlessly amusing. And you’d be lying if you said you didn’t have a tiny streak of mischief in you. A streak of mischief that has made itself known, this weekend.
He tells you about the case; down in the country, drama, guns, a car chase, John beat someone up with a tyre lever and he had to overhear a phone call where Mary told him how sexy that was. Lestrade drove down in the aftermath. Mycroft was threatening another knighthood. His parents thought he was close enough to stay there overnight; he declined and stayed at the hotel. Good thing he did, or the murderer would have gotten away entirely. With the kangaroo shoes, which were important.
“The kangaroo shoes was the evidence,” he says, eyes glinting with the feverish delight of a murder. He finally stops speaking, now that he’s divested himself of outer garments and done various things, including moving his skull to the opposite end of the mantelpiece and plumping up the Union Jack cushion. Then he walks back over and sits on the sofa next to you, pulling out his phone.
He texts. You lean your shoulder against his and study your Murduko with calm concentration. You can feel his eyes lurking on it.
“You’ve levelled up,” he says suddenly. “By a considerable amount.”
You keep your face clear, very clear, of any of your usual lying tells. (A handy conversation you had with Mary - she told you all your tells and how to fool Sherlock if you ever had to lie to him. Not, maybe, a very traditionally healthy relationship outlook. But useful, just in case, with Sherlock.)
“Yeah. I didn’t exactly have much to do over the weekend, did I? My arm candy wasn’t here.”
Sherlock huffs. You give it a few sedate minutes, then yawn and click the pen off. “Lie down. I’m sleepy.”
He obliges, lying lengthwise and allowing you to stretch out against him, his arm encircling you and holding his phone up over his face. You pretend you’re still trying to do the Murduko, and then yawn even wider, trailing off into a mumble of how tired you are. You shut your eyes. Put your ear over his heartbeat, strong and steady and present, grounding in a way you never knew another person’s heartbeat could be.
You wait. After a while you let your muscles relax. Sherlock carries on clicking and texting, his leg occasionally twitching - you can feel it in your toes, the jerks of concentration and adrenaline.
The Murduko slips away from your fingers towards the floor. Sherlock’s chest tenses, his other arm vanishes, and you hear a rustle as he rescues it. A pause.
Pause.
Another rustle. His shoulder rotates, bringing the paper up in place of his phone.
You breathe, and count his heartbeats.
(Inside, you’re screaming with glee.)
Another few moments. A slight huff. And then you feel his hand over yours, gently prying the pen free of your loose grasp. You let him take it. It’s incredibly touching, how so very gentle he is, how delicate. You’d never realised before. Maybe you should have. You’ve seen him with Rosie. He might call her a vegetable, but he loves her really.
Time passes. The pen clicks on once. And then off, with a sharp edge of frustration. On again.
(The glee builds.)
He’s trying to do it. He’s trying to do it, and failing.
Sherlock Holmes, could defeat arch-enemies, jump off a roof and survive, could do anything, but couldn’t do Murduko.
No wonder he had such beef with it.
A moment. His arms switch, his phone clicking on. The taps of his texting. A moment; a muted vibration of a reply.
This happens a few times, and then-
“Dammit, John,” Sherlock hisses. Almost silently, but you hear the vibrations in his chest.
(It takes everything you have to not kick your feet against his shins with still more glee. You’re going to explode with the stuff, at this point.)
More time passes. You feel him snap a photo of the grid; more texting, more replies.
And then there’s footsteps on the stairs.
The door creaks open and Mrs Hudson enters. You feel Sherlock craning his head backwards; feel him mouthing “Shush.”
“Oh, look at the two of you!” Mrs Hudson exclaims, sotto voce; you hear the softened clap of her hands.
“Mrs Hudson,” Sherlock whisper-hisses, “don’t wake up Y/N, but - come here.”
“Is it a case, dear?” She’s tiptoeing over now. You let out a tiny murmur, your fingers uncurling slightly. They both freeze, and then Sherlock strokes his hand briefly down your back. You allow yourself to be pacified and slump back against him.
“I’m sure Y/N hardly slept while you were gone, dear. Worrying for you, missing you, you know.”
“No,” Sherlock mutters with a touch of bitterness, “busy with Murduko. Clearly exhausted from it. Look. What do you think?”
You feel Mrs Hudson stooping lower to see what he’s holding up; half a minute passes and then she’s stepping back. “I don’t know, dear, I just stick to my old suduko. I’m sure I could never solve that, it looks terribly advanced.” You hear her picking up his teacup, and then, “Don’t you know, Sherlock?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he snaps back, still at whisper-volume. “I wanted to know what you thought.”
Mrs Hudson chuckles. She’s seen straight through him.
Then she’s gone, the door clicking shut, and Sherlock lets out a huff, leaning his head forward and pressing his lips to your hair absently, like he’s trying to recalibrate.
He studies the grid again. You can feel him fretting over it. The pen clicks on and there’s the sound of an experimental touch of ink on paper.
His phone vibrates. He reaches for it.
You wait.
And then another infuriated hiss, slightly more loud, “Mycroft, you prick-”
You can’t help it, then. You cough out a laugh and ‘awaken’, blinking groggily. Sherlock gives you a curt smile with too much teeth, and you blink at him in confusion. “You okay?”
“Yes,” he says. “Here.” The moment you sit up, he thrusts the Murduko at you. “Solved it for you.”
You stare at him, then down at the grid. You don’t have to fake your reaction. “Oh…Oh. Thanks…?”
“It was easy,” he says nonchalantly. “Clearly it bored you to sleep. Since that’s the toughest level, I do suggest you give up the bad habit now. Try nicotine patches instead.”
“Suduko patches,” you laugh. “Right, I need a coffee. Tea?”
“Please.” He leans back, grabbing up his phone.
You hightail it into the kitchen with the Murduko, wrestling your own phone frantically out of your pocket, switching on the kettle as you pass. This Murduko is The Hardest One. How can he have solved it. He was having trouble. He’s bluffing, you decide, pulling up the answer sheet. He has to be. It can’t be right.
You’d consulted the answers when filling out your half-done version, making some deliberate mistakes to complete the authenticity of it. You spent the entire weekend plotting this silly charade. He couldn’t solve it. How did he solve it.
His version is completely right.
You look between the evidence and your phone, completely befuddled. The kettle roars behind you in agreeable outrage.
Two hands come around you, a chest pressing against your back. Sherlock interlinks his hands over you. He’s laughing, almost silently, and his voice is deep in your ear. Gleeful. (He shouldn’t be gleeful, you think petulantly, it should be me-)
“Do you really think,” he says lowly, so much amusement in his voice that it almost makes you laugh despite yourself, “that I couldn’t solve that?”
“You…you knew.” You start scowling and laughing simultaneously. “All along. That I faked sleeping and faked being so good at it over the weekend, and- and?”
“Yup. Only realised you weren’t asleep when Mrs Hudson came up, though. You’re good at acting.”
“You - you bloody idiot.”
You can hear Sherlock’s grin. “I am more clever than Murduko, Y/N. I’m offended that you ever doubted me. Hopefully now that I have proved it, you will cease to think my despise of Murduko is because it could ever best me. Keep your Murduko if you wish, but don’t labour under misguided delusions.”
“Well,” you say, putting the papers and phone down and turning to him, “what is it, then? What’s the reason?”
“Because,” Sherlock says, drawing you closer, “in my experience…games for two - a united partnership, or a friendly game done by people who trust each other - are decidedly superior.”
Love is a strange thing, and it does stranger things to people. But there is nothing strange in what you want to do next, and what you do; and Sherlock Holmes may not be an ordinary person, but for once there is nothing strange in the way he reciprocates.